Heaven Can Wait by Harry Segall
Directed by David Booth
Joe Pendleton is an up and coming prizefighter who suddenly finds himself being ushered to an angelic airliner bound for the Hereafter. Although everyone else waiting in line is pleased to be headed in this most desirable direction, he is decidedly not – in fact, he becomes quite adamant that someone has made a mistake.
Refusing to accept that he is dead, Joe induces the man in charge, Mr. Jordan, to look up the “records,” which reveal that Joe is not scheduled to arrive for another sixty years!
The heavenly messenger who harvested his soul has indeed goofed. And to make things even worse, Joe can’t be returned to his own body, because his fight manager, Max, has already had it cremated.
Mr. Jordan promises that Joe will live out the life he was meant to have and sets out to find Joe another body – one soon to be vacated, of course. Joe finds all of the “candidates” unsuitable to be the prizefighter he wants to be, including the somewhat out of shape body of a crooked, extremely wealthy banker-investor named Farnsworth, who is about to murdered by his wife and personal secretary.
Then he sees Miss Bette Logan, who has come to visit Farnsworth to plead with him to correct shady business manipulations that have landed her father in jail – suddenly, Farnsworth’s body and self-serving lifestyle don’t look all that bad to Joe, as long as he gets to help Ms. Logan.
Now everyone is confused; Farnsworth, actually Joe, just doesn’t seem to act like himself any more – especially since he was supposed to be dead …
In 1941, playwright Harry Segall won an academy award for best original story for the film Here Comes Mr. Jordan, starring Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains. The screenplay was based on his play, Heaven Can Wait.
Refusing to accept that he is dead, Joe induces the man in charge, Mr. Jordan, to look up the “records,” which reveal that Joe is not scheduled to arrive for another sixty years!
The heavenly messenger who harvested his soul has indeed goofed. And to make things even worse, Joe can’t be returned to his own body, because his fight manager, Max, has already had it cremated.
Mr. Jordan promises that Joe will live out the life he was meant to have and sets out to find Joe another body – one soon to be vacated, of course. Joe finds all of the “candidates” unsuitable to be the prizefighter he wants to be, including the somewhat out of shape body of a crooked, extremely wealthy banker-investor named Farnsworth, who is about to murdered by his wife and personal secretary.
Then he sees Miss Bette Logan, who has come to visit Farnsworth to plead with him to correct shady business manipulations that have landed her father in jail – suddenly, Farnsworth’s body and self-serving lifestyle don’t look all that bad to Joe, as long as he gets to help Ms. Logan.
Now everyone is confused; Farnsworth, actually Joe, just doesn’t seem to act like himself any more – especially since he was supposed to be dead …
In 1941, playwright Harry Segall won an academy award for best original story for the film Here Comes Mr. Jordan, starring Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains. The screenplay was based on his play, Heaven Can Wait.
